Rave Reviews Log: Realistic Fiction

June 17, 2008

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

By Jeanne Birdsall

Rating: 4 1/2 stars

For those of you who liked the first book called simply The Penderwicks, this thoroughly enjoyable sequel will have fans cheering. Back home on Gardam Street in Cameron, Massachusetts, our four sisters--Rosalind, Skye, Jane and Batty--are faced with a big problem. As we know, the Penderwicks' mother died shortly after giving birth to Batty, and now, four years later, it is revealed that she left behind a letter to insist Mr. Penderwick begin to date. Well, this horror can't be allowed! So the sisters make a Save Daddy Plan to fix him up with terrible dates to turn him off of dating and avoid (shiver!) a wicked stepmother. To futher complicate things, neighbor Tommy has a crush on Rosalind, Skye and Jane switch homework assignments only to court disaster, and Batty is on the lookout for the scary Bug Man who has begun to haunt Gardam Street (but no one believes her). But if you know the Penderwicks, they manage to work through their problems in a sometimes funny, sometimes practical, but always in a loving family type of way. It is impossible for a family of four sisters to be quite so harmonious as these are, but if you could reimagine Little Women for our time, you'd come up with the Penderwicks. The plot is a tad predictable, particularly where the new neighbor and her infant son are concerned, but readers will be enjoying the characters so much, they won't really care. Let's hope for more installments to come in this happy series.